About Makor program

Makor 011 Jewish Genealogy (MJG)

Makor 011 Jewish Genealogy helps you to ensure continuity of your present generation and at the same time continuity of generations yet to come. "He who has no past has no future". The best way to connect young people to their heritage is to help them learn their personal story. The Passover Seder is the best example of Jewish genealogy.

The MJG Program will get you involved in the search of databases related to your family. By developing research skills and discovering useful resources, you will find the history of your family with the supporting data. The MJG Program will connect you to Jews throughout the world by introducing you to close and distant relatives. In sum, the MJG Program will help you learn about your personal and family background, and how your story connects you to the larger Jewish community.

To begin, ask simple questions about your parents and grandparents. For example, key questions include the date of birth, place of birth, date of death, where they lived, education and profession. Some of these questions will be quite easy to answer, but sometimes the answers will require additional study, research, visit to local cemeteries, community institutions museums and archives.

Makor 011 will be happy to mentor a group of people motivated to build their family trees and learn more about their family and communal past and heritage.

History, Heritage and Sites Project

Jewish history and heritage may be found in the array of sites that remain in Eastern and Central Europe. Numerous synagogues and buildings still stand. Hundreds of Jewish cemeteries still exist. There are Jewish museums, exhibitions, old ghettos and quarters, community offices, schools, hospitals, houses of rabbis and the Holocaust memorials that are of interest both for Jews and non-Jews.

In the Serbian capital of Belgrade, one will find numerous traces and records of Jewish presence from centuries ago. We know about Dorchol, the former Jewish quarter; its Jewish streets such as Jevrejska, Solunska, Visokog Stevana and Cara Urosa; its homes of prominent members and leaders of our community.

However, the locations of synagogues, social and communal buildings are not marked. Similarly, Jewish shops,restaurants and locations of meeting places of ordinary people are not known. How much do we know about the location and past significance of all these sites? How much do we care about their memory, preservation and continuity? How many of our children, young Jews, know about these places?

We invite you to be part of the program that will enrich your knowledge and skills to record these sites and collect all relevant information, including the address, direction to the proper location, a brief history, and a photo (past and contemporary).

Makor 011 will initiate and support this program, which will bring together various people ranging from local tourist guides specializing in Jewish sites, to students of architecture, the arts, history, ethnology, and scholars and researchers. We are convinced that a variety of personalities and institutions will lend support of these important activities.

Makor 011 plans to contact elderly members of the community for help by recording their memorable stories from their past. We will visit local Jewish and city museums and archives in search of our roots.We are relying on the Belgrade tourist board to help us develop our program.

Makor 011 will provide the experience from other cities and will try to answer your questions and requests.

Jewish Culture

Language, Literature, Music, Art, Humour, Film, Theatre and Dance

Makor 011 will present comprehensive research and an account of the Jewish contribution to every cultural field that evolved in Belgrade,Serbia.Study and research will cover over 400 years, following the arrival of Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews as early 16th century to the region, followed by the period of liberation from Ottoman rule and the Emancipation period of the 19th and 20th century.

The activities conducted will enrich our knowledge and skills related to heritage preservation, and explain the remarkable achievements of the Belgrade Jewish population, which, throughout the history of the city, constituted a minority. Despite Ottoman and Austrian wars and the occupation of Serbia, the Jews of Belgrade made significant contributions to the fields of art, literature, language, publishing, philosophy and some social sciences.

Makor 011 will focus on recording and presenting the achievements of the past and give its support for the creation of new forms of cultural heritage.

Jewish Gastronomy (Food)

Jewish cooking is a unique synthesis of cooking styles from the many places that Jews have lived throughout the centuries.

Based on the existence of both Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities in the city of Belgrade, Jewish cooking has a fascinating fusion of Spanish, German and Eastern European styles of cooking.

Makor 011 will encourage the study and preservation of our unique and traditional gastronomic heritage. We are convinced that Jewish cooking will be maintained, preserved and enriched.